Tiyondah Fante-Coleman (BSc ’16, MA '19) is a researcher at the Pathways to Care Project with Black Health Alliance. Recently Tiyondah was featured in a Toronto Star article that highlighted local organizations working to reduce the barriers to mental-health care facing Black children and youth.

A proud Laurier graduate, two times over, Fante-Coleman also gives back to her alma mater by mentoring Laurier students by volunteering her time at alumni networking events. She credits some incredible professors for her research success.


Question: How did your experiences at Laurier lead you to where you are today?

Answer: I did both my undergrad degree (Health Sciences, '16) and my masters (Community Psychology, '19) at Laurier and I was lucky to have some really great professors who imparted in me some strong ethical values when it came to how to do research and work with communities. I am incredibly lucky to have had that guidance and it still informs all the work that I do today. The skills, research methods and community of my programs really prepared me to do the work that I'm doing now. I can't emphasize enough how great my undergrad supervisor, Dr. Robb Travers and graduate supervisor, Dr. Ciann L. Wilson were for my growth as a researcher.


Question: Tell us about the research work you are doing on Canadian Black children and mental health?

Answer: I currently work as a qualitative researcher for a research and implementation project called Pathways to Care. The project is a joint effort between a few organizations but the overall goal is to increase the amount of knowledge there is about the specific needs of Black youth accessing mental healthcare and what is currently acting a barrier for them to get proper access to that care. Beyond that, we really want to take any knowledge we gain and put it into action. We're partnering with mental health and Black-led organizations in six cities in the province: Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, London and Windsor to implement the learnings and findings from our research.

The mental healthcare system in Canada is really large and hard to navigate, so our project mostly focuses on the work that is being done by mental health organizations, but we understand that really when we're talking about mental health there's also an overlap between the education system, the healthcare system, and the judicial system so we want to do work that speaks to those things as well.


Question: What do you wish more people understood about your research and work?

Answer: That qualitative work can be really impactful! I think there is often a focus on quantitative work because the thought is always that numbers drive results, and they do! But we are doing quantitative research for our project as well and it's incredibly important. Hearing people tell their own stories should be seen as equally valuable and worthy of action to address a problem. There is always the risk of harm in any kind of research, but I often hear from participants how doing a focus group is cathartic and helps them connect with others in a similar situation, there's power in that.


Question: If you only had one piece of advice for others as it relates to your findings from your research, what would it be?

Answer: The current challenges to access to care for Black youth in getting the mental healthcare they need is a choice and can be fixed. To find solutions we need to listen to the people being affected and use all of the resources available to us to fix the way the system is currently set up. It doesn't have to be this way and we shouldn't get complacent about it. Black youth and their families have the solutions for what they need, mental healthcare workers have solutions. It is about listening to them and working them to put that into action.